Royally Observant
by siriusly klutzy
Summary: Lily is an obvious distraction to James. After a while, though, he runs out of the obvious and starts to see the not so obvious things about her. Such as her royal purple nail polish.


**Summary: Lily is an obvious distraction to James. After a while, though, he runs out of the obvious and starts to see the not so obvious things about her. Such as her royal purple nail polish.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Jo's.**

**Royally Observant**

a Siriusly Klutzy fic.

It was purple.

No, not her shirt, or her shoes, or her hair, or her eyes. Granted, purple hair would look ridiculous- I'm quite partial to her red- and purple eyes would be strange- I prefer them green. No, it wasn't any of those things. It was her nail polish that was purple. A dark royal- if that's what you'd call it. I don't know much about nail polish let alone shades- purple.

And it looked lovely on her.

Picture if you will a gorgeous redhead- stunning, alluring, perfect- with green eyes. Got the image? Good. Now, picture her hands. What do you see? Do you see purple nail polish? Just the right shade of dark purple, not too dark though, just right. Kind of like Goldie Locks, if she had red hair, didn't associate with bears, and went through trials of nail polish instead of porridge.

But you get what I mean.

Normally, I would tell her that the nail polish looks excellent on her, perfectly complimenting her fingers, though I'm not sure that would be much of a compliment. How often do you compliment people's nail polish, let alone their fingers? Not to mention it would highly decrease my rugged manliness.

I couldn't tell her, anyway. We're strictly (hopefully not for long) on a 'just mates' basis. And we're barely surviving there, what with her tendency to want to shout at me- old habits die hard, apparently- and my tendency to want to, you know, snog her; it can get pretty chaotic. There've been many times where she started yelling and I'd have to give her the _Hey, we're mates now, remember? _look. And then she would remember and flush red.

And, sadly, during all those fights, while her arms were flailing around- because Lily Evans was quite partial to hand gestures- and before I would remember that we _were _supposed to be mates, I was staring at her hands, at those shiny purple nails.

"Prongs?" Sirius called, trying to interrupt my very successful gaze at her fingers. When I ignored him, he said, "Smack him, Moony."

Moony took his Charms book and walloped me in the back of the head with it, causing Sirius to be successful in his interruption.

"Ow!"

"You're staring again," Sirius pointed out.

"Yeah."

"Mates don't stare at mates," Remus added. Since when was he O Great One of Relationships?

"What if the mate has a nice bogey hanging out of his nose?" I asked pointedly, staring determinedly at Sirius's bogey free face. He looked at me through slitted eyes and ignored my comment. The prat always was good at being able to tell if I was lying.

"Mates don't stare at mates," Sirius said, repeating Remus. "I don't get what you're looking at this time. You've stared at her enough times to know every detail about her."

"Well, not _every_ detail," Remus added with a smirk and waggling eyebrows, his true marauder coming out. Sirius, Peter, and I looked at him with raised eyebrows. It was not often you get a comment like _that _out of Remus Lupin.

Sirius chuckled. "True. Not every detail. But pretty close."

"So what were you looking at?" Peter asked, looking over at Lily with squinted eyes, trying to see something new.

"Nothing, nothing," I said, trying to brush off their suspicions.

However, I failed miserably. These guys knew me too well, something that's convenient sometimes, and annoying as hell others. Sirius was staring me down, Remus was tapping his quill, and Peter was still looking over at Lily, much more obviously than I would have done. But he's Peter. What can you expect?

Lily, possibly sensing someone staring at her, looked over and saw Peter. She smiled timidly- what would you do if you caught Peter staring?- and then caught my gaze and waved with more confidence. It was nice to know she waves better to me than Peter.

And that's a sheer sign that I'm going mad.

I stare at her _nail polish_ and then compare myself to Peter. Right, a trip to Saint Mungos is definitely in order.

"Prongs," Sirius sang slowly.

"Hm?" I had to focus on the essay I should have been doing on mistreatment of dragons. Right. Dragons. I had to focus on dragons and not the purple nail polish.

So ignoring Sirius, I proceeded to read.

_…and with its scaled purple back and fiery red feet the…_

Purple back. Lily has purple nail polish and fiery red hair.

Right, there was no way I could concentrate on dragons.

"Prongs," Sirius sang again, trying to get my attention. "Hit him again, Moony?"

I snapped out of my daze of trying to concentrate on dragons before Moony could whack me with his stupid Charms book again.

"_What,_ Padfoot?" I asked, looking at my mate and trying not to look out of the corner of my eye at the redhead who was happily laughing with Alice mere feet away.

"If you don't tell me what in the name of Merlin you were staring at, I'm going to go over to Evans and ask her what she changed about herself," Sirius threatened. "And then she'll think that _I'm _interested, even though I prefer brunettes, and you're competition will be heavily increased because, really, who do you think she'd choose?"

"May I borrow that?" I asked Remus. He offered me his text book and I chucked it at Sirius who just laughed loudly and put his arms up to cover his face. "Thanks," I said, feeling a bit relieved.

"Now, Prongs, you know we're going to find out sooner or later, whether it be by manipulating you in your sleep or putting Veritaserum in your pumpkin juice. So just tell us already."

I groaned and took another look at Lily.

"Her _nail polish_ for Merlin's sake!" I roared, rolling my eyes at Sirius who seemed pleased to final gain this information.

Remus and Peter started laughing loudly and Sirius clapped me on the back. Not to mention the entire Common Room was looking at me like I was completely mad.

"Nail polish, eh?" Sirius asked with a smirk. He squinted his eyes in Lily's direction (who was looking at me like I was crazy. Did she hear what I said?) and, I'm assuming, looked at her finger nails. "Oh, it is a lovely purple. What would you call that?"

Sarcasm is a horrible thing and whoever invented it needs to have it used on them at least fifteen million times by Sirius Black to understand why I feel this way.

"Royal purple," I grumbled, crossing my arms and trying to avoid the gaze of, well, everyone in the entire Common Room.

"Royal purple. Huh…"

Remus and Peter were laughing even louder now. I've really got to learn to _keep my mouth shut_.

"Never knew you were so into that kind of stuff, Prongs," Remus said, still laughing with the rest. He gave me a meaningful look. "But I hope you know we- Sirius, Peter, and I- support your decision… even if it _is _a bit bizarre."

"That explains the just mates thing…" Peter muttered under his breath.

"So what was Lily?" Sirius asked with a mocking smile. "Just a cover up?"

Oh Merlin. Oh bleeding Merlin. They aren't saying…? They don't think…?

"A _cover up_?" I sputtered, looking at my truly mad mates. "No! It wasn't a cover up! Sweet Merlin, I just thought the color looked _nice _on her!"

I can't believe they would even _think _that. Even after they heard me talking in my sleep. And not only that, the whole Common Room was looking at this odd and completely misleading conversation! And so was _Lily_! She could… she could think I was… you know, into _blokes_! I mean, _I _knew that they were just joking, but, lets be honest, some of the people here are pretty gullible.

The world is a cruel, cruel place.

And obviously I needed to prove my point.

"Lily!" I called, slightly exasperated, across the Common Room. Her eyes went wide, proving that she obviously didn't want to be in this conversation.

"Er… yes?" Alice was chuckling to her self and pushing her mate over towards me. Lily, giving Alice a glare that was too familiar to me, slowly made her way over.

"Lily, I like your nail polish. I think it looks great on you. Now. Would you kiss me?" I asked pleadingly.

"I don't know…. I don't like being used as a cover up," she said teasingly, playing along. Lily! Playing along! Oh Merlin, this really couldn't get any worse. "But, you know, if you'd like to try and keep the secret for a bit longer, it wouldn't be right for me to not help, now would it?"

Ready to pull my hair out, I all but shouted, "I don't have a secret!" Then I realized what she said and, almost acting on impulse, but not quite because I planned on doing it anyway, I pulled her into a kiss.

After a couple seconds of the best moment of my life, she pulled away and smiled. "Huh…"

"What?" I asked, fully aware of every single pair of eyes in the Common Room on us.

She spun around, facing a majority of the students and said in a loud clear voice, "No boy that can kiss a girl like that could fancy blokes."

I knew she was perfect! All I could think of at that moment was, Thank Merlin for Lily Evans.

I took her hands in mine and pulled them up to my face, admiring the purple nail polish (something any guy could do, as long as it's on a girl).

"That color really does look nice on you," I commented in my seductive voice.

"Thanks. I borrowed it from Alice," Lily said.

"So… want to do that again?"

"What? Snog?"

"No, go fishing," I said sarcastically. It was okay when I did it, because I don't do it as much as Sirius.

"As sweet as that is," she said teasingly, "I've got an essay on dragons to finish." And on that note, she and Alice walked happily up to the girls' dorm, leaving me to continue to go insane and wait for the day that I could do that again, which could possibly be tomorrow. But at least the Common Room knew that I- still- fancied Lily Evans and only Lily Evans. And I think she fancied me back.

**A/n: So yes, another one shot before updating the Golden Fic. Sorry, I'm working on it. It's about half way done, the chapter that is. But this idea came to me because there's green nail polish a couple inches away and I was just having a conversation with my friend about nail polish, except it was purple. Hence the purple nail polish.**

**Lets see… my APs are finished! Horray! I survived! I think I did alright in history, but not so alright in Physics. Eh, I'll be happy as long as I do okay on finals.**

**Sorry about the randomness and such! Chapter seven… I think… should be up in a couple days! I've finally got time to relax, which is just what I need.**

**Much love and a James (or other Marauder, take your pick) to notice your nail polish,**

**Siriusly Klutzy**


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